 Good day to everybody, attendees and panellists. Welcome to our webinar for today entitled Export Restriction by India on Non-Basmati Rives or Implications for the Global Rife Sector. I'm delighted to introduce the eerie board chair, Dr. Karl Dukfatt, to officially open today's program. Dr. Dukfatt, please go ahead. To our esteemed speakers, our online attendees from partner institutions and colleagues, good day and welcome to this very important webinar where we will discuss India's recent non-basmati rice ban and its impact on the global rice economy. I am excited to learn from the impressive lineup of expert fellow economists that we have with us today to give technical and country-specific insights on this very important topic as it impacts multiple facets of rice trade. India is undeniably one of the world's largest producers and exporters of rice, including non-basmati varieties. A major trade policy change in India or any other country of such rank always has impacts on the global price market. That is what the world observed in 2008 and is observing now. As we all know, rice is a staple food for billions of people around the world, securing stable supply with stable affordable prices. Rice is one of the most important tasks of any government where rice is staple food. Recent movements in the rice market raise concern of governments and people not only in importing but also in exporting rice countries. A lesson I learned from 2008 crisis and these days is that proof food and transparent information of rice production, consumption, stocks and trade, careful scientific analysis of the situation and close international cooperation are helpful for governments to take right policy decisions avoiding the panic which is harmful for everyone. That is why I am really thankful to the group of economists from Erie and all of you for taking time to attend this webinar. I hope that our scientific evaluation and analysis of the current situation will have the world go through this difficult period smoothly with low cost. Thank you and I look forward to learning more about this topic. Thank you Dr. Phat for setting the scene for that and your experience of of course being the Minister of Agriculture in Vietnam for 12 years speaks volumes and I really take your point so to heart about the importance of price for rice especially when rice is the staple of the country and your emphasis that you put on how policy is so critical to deal with this. So very important points and I think we'll hear a lot more on that from our esteemed panelists. So greetings to everybody and thank you for attending. My name is Joanna Cain Pataka and I'm the Deputy Director General at Erie for Strategy Engagement and Impact and I'll be the moderator for today. Now today we have it split into two main panel sessions each will be allocated 30 minutes and that will leave us with 20 minutes for question and answer at the end. So all Zoom participants you can put your questions in the Zoom Q&A function. Please list the name of the panelists you'd like the question to go to and please add your questions as we go. Don't leave it to the end because we've got a lot of panelists to go through and questions will only be at the very end so please feel free to add into the Q&A section as we go and panelists will be able to see your questions and prepare. So the first panel we can go straight into that now. The first panel we aim to examine the band's impacts on international trade, the impacts on economic stability and the impacts on food security. So really really critical. Firstly is Dr. David Dore. Now David is an independent economist specializing in food policy analysis so perfect for this session. David was also previously a senior economist with FAO and I'm really proud to say also is an iri alumni so welcome back David. Our second panelist today is on this panel session is Dr. Samarendu Mahanti so Sam. He's currently the director with the international potato center the regional director for Asia but also we're proud to say he's another iri alumni and Sam was head of and the senior economist for iris social sciences division so welcome Sam. And the third of our three panelists for the first panel is Dr. Harold Valera. Harold is a scientist and an economic modeler for the transformative policies and investment unit with iri right now so thank you for joining us Harold and so kindly note each of you you have eight minutes to present in total of the questions that I'll give you and I'll let you know when you've got one minute left to to wrap up and summarize the key points you want to make. So let's kick off with Harold the lucky first so Harold there are just a couple of questions I'd like you to address so you are the proud sort of leader of the econometric model that we have and you've been able to look at that and I'd like to ask you how much of a rise do you see in the prices of rice given this shock to the market and also how much of any world price increase do you expect will transmit to the domestic markets and which countries do you think might be affected most by this so over to you Harold. Thank you. Thanks Johanna first of all good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to add some few notes on the potential impact of the ingest export price restrictions so yeah actually just right after ingest announcement back in back on last July 20 our team headed by Valpede and our partners at ADB, Takashi Yamano actually alerted us and then we immediately ran a simulation using our in-house model we call it the eddy global rice model and I'm happy that you know we are using this model now and we have Dr. Samohanti as one of the panelists because he led the development of that model back in 2009 so now I think to answer the question on how much of the potential increase in rice world rice prices so I think it's important to note first that for this is a restriction for non basmati white rice and in the last two years there were about you know 10 million tons of that and we used that information to update the our the eddy global rice model in fact when when someone's here we only have around 25 countries but we updated that in light of the fact that you know mostly African countries are affected so we added six additional African countries so using that information we tried to simulate the you know that export restrictions by reducing ingest total exports by 10 million tons and yeah during the first week we actually got you know an increase of about nearly 20 percent or equivalent to 110 dollars as you may have noted before in the news the before before the announcement the the price of type price type broken was at around 534 dollars per ton no but what what we got actually is closer to what we have now so in fact but I will leave that to you know some presentation later I think the first slide will his first slide will provide an update on the market so now I think the the question is I mean I just want to point out that you know after three weeks there was a substantial increase in type by type prices for example but it's not as massive it's not massive either so that means the market has reacted but has not panicked so anyway with around 20 increase in in in the global rice prices we have found in a model and as validated from the recent trends in type prices so the it's important to note that the world price is actually an important potential stabilization force but food security may arise if the increase in world prices is transmitted to domestic prices now I think before I I provide a comment on how much will be transmitted to domestic prices I think it's important first to look at you know the trends in domestic prices for example before the band let's say before India imposed an export tax back in September 2022 so if we look at the cumulative percentage increase in rice prices no from August 2022 to June 2023 there were actually substantial increases in some of the Asian countries for example in the case of Pakistan it's around it's around 76 percent I mean domestic prices also for Thailand around 14 percent and Vietnam 28 percent for the Philippines it's around 44 percent between August 2022 and June 2023 but if we compare like for example the the prices of type of the Thai 5 percent broken it declined from January to March but if we compare March 2023 to August 2023 still there were substantial increase in if we look at the cumulative percentage increase in rice prices so for example so for the Philippines it's around 10 percent for Thailand 9 percent and Vietnam 33 percent and and for Pakistan it's around 90 percent but overall okay since there will be because of the increase in the global rice prices then domestic rice prices will increase accordingly based on on the results of of our simulations so for for for instance so our simulations suggest that the ingest restrictions on non-bus materialize will increase the domestic prices in the Philippines and in Indonesia and other exporting countries in Southeast Asia by within the range of 5 percent to 10 percent we also look at the price effect in African countries and if the our estimate is in the vicinity of 10 to 15 percent so yeah I think that's all that I would like to share at the moment in terms of that thanks okay thank you Harold right on time that's excellent okay so a lot of data there for people to build on I see we've already got one Q&A thank you Bruce Tolentino our another alumni and close some partner so I'll encourage the panelists to keep watch on those questions and be ready at the end okay over to Sam Sam since you are the Asia Regional Director if you can dig a little deeper for us on the Asian perspective we've got some good data there from Harold but how is an increase in these rice prices going to now impact the food security for people in Asia also if you can tackle that India says that it will allow special permission for exports based on different countries food security needs but is there enough to go around and enough rice to go around and also are there any long-term repercussions for the Indian export ban and if so what do you think these are so taking these rice this rice data to the next level of the impact on food security so thanks Sam over to you thank you Joanne and you know it's a pleasure to be here and talking on the ED platform let me share my screen just let me know when I can you can see my screen we can see it all right all right it's a screen mode now yes no not yet okay it is correct not yet now it is yes okay okay thank you Marco and thank you Joanne and thank you Iri for giving the opportunity to speak and nice to see all these old friends of Iri and always I've moved to potato but rice is always the first love and you never leave your first love so whenever there's some rice stuff going on I kind of dragged into this thing you know to say my give my comments here so how about already gave some of the remarks on running the model how it has impacting the the domestic prices and all these things and how how the world prices have changed but I'll I'll provide some updated information if you look at this price chart here it has the the it has India prices and also Thai and Vietnam prices you as Harald mentioned the price went up quite a bit 20% in matter of two weeks after the ban but if you still see last two weeks until yesterday both Thai and Vietnam this is 25% broken price I cannot stabilize actually last two weeks prices have declined so so so I think the impact of Indian non-bus but the export ban has already been factored into the current price what you see there so I don't expect anything because of the ban anymore for the increase unless there's some other new news coming in there so I think the fact that the market has already factored into the the effect of the Indian export ban on the global market there let me just you know what is happening right now is this is my very famous global rice stock news ratio everybody use and if you see the blue line that's with the China and if you see the orange bar that's without China quite a bit of difference stock news ratio in terms of rest of the world and if you include China so most of the stock increase has happened at least on paper nobody really can confirm Chinese number there unless you know it's it's not publicly available there and the the rest of the world stock news ratio actually more or less say hovering around 15 18 20% which has been the case for last 15 years so there's nothing that changed that there's a supply problem issue there the prices has gone up there so I think supply wise if you look at the global and if you look at the India number here India has very sufficient very comfortable level of stocks on a 41 million ton by end of July there so it's very comfortable level of stocks there so supply wise I don't see any problem in terms of any sort of rice crisis or price spike there I think India put export ban and the market has reacted to that accordingly because India is the largest exporter there so if you if you go back to what has happened this year actually if you look at January to June India is exactly halfway in terms of what they exported last year by end of June the exports was around 11 million ton compared to last year 22 million ton there if you see projected for the rest of the year with ban in place I think India will be exporting around 19 million tons of both you know they have already exported 5 million tons of non basmati rice white rice I'm talking parabolic rice I think you will see expected very natural that you will see increased export of parabolic and basmati rice we have already seen last two weeks the parabolic rice demand has quite quite a bit increased there so we are talking about three million tons gap in Indian exports this year but if you factor Indian exports to the G2G like Bangladesh, Nepal, Philippines and some of the African country which have already approached India for for government to government food security purpose you will see another two three million tons of rice export particularly non basmati to these countries in the next six months there so I don't expect Indian exports to really go down physically this year so I think India will export in excess of 20 million ton 20 21 million ton there so you don't so I don't expect a lot of price spike with the given situation supply situation and market there but what has happened since then so the so so you see a big 25% increase in the parabolic rice between in the last month there around 700,000 tons of parabolic rice has been exported now so there's the request for early shipment of basmati rice so the the buyers are concerned that India might take some more action so they are actually telling that you you deliver it early to us there then India couple of days ago they have put a 40% export tax on onion there so it's India is very finicky because of the election going on you know starting from November in some of the state elections and the general election in March May there I really don't expect the export ban to be removed until next May irrespective of what happens in the Kharib crops India will continue to put the export ban and but also export G to G basis so they want to control the quantity there to the extra that they have enough rice domestically there so the effect of the export ban the whole purpose of India put export ban is to to rein in the domestic price that has not happened if you see from from after the after the export ban actually prices has increased this is all India average price rise price until yesterday prices continue to rise there it's very difficult to rein in the price with export ban there I think that India needs to realize that this policy is not very effective in terms of export ban there so the prices continue to rise domestically which is a bad news actually so what what you can expect now with the India domestic price not declining so there's a possibility now very high possibility India is going to put some restriction on parabolic and also basmati rice so what I hear yesterday that they they're going to put 20 percent duty on parabolic at the first step and so the minimum export price for basmati rice so that's the first step they will take probably we'll see that in next couple of weeks this particular policy will be announced if that doesn't work then India is going to ban the parabolic rise I think if that happens then we are looking at some panic in the global market if India takes these extreme steps of putting a ban on the on the on the parabolic rise and putting a high minimum export price on the basmati rice there so here you go my take on where we go from here if India does not take any further action you know they keep the export ban on non on non parabolic or non basmati rice until next May and global prices may go higher depending on the Kharib crop you know the wet season crop is the main crop both South Asia South Asia what happens in these close to countries then extend the production loss in China which is a major concern and how China manages is production deficit whether they enters the market then it's a bad news all the managers with the domestic stocks they have there so that also may affect the global prices there so it's very unlikely that the price is going to spike a rise quite a bit from where we are today so I think you if the Kharib Club is good we are going to see the prices to be stable at this 600 at that level there but if India takes further action which is more more it looks like more possible now you know with domestic price not rising so that might create a panic in the market India start banning parabolic rise so you might see some other exporters might responding to that importers might panicking that so you might see a significant price increase of price spike we are looking at maybe additional 200 to 400 dollar per ton in the price increase we might see there so this is where you know the market looks like in terms of what is happening up to that information in terms of the impact of the Indian ban on the on the on the Indian market and also the global market there maybe I'll stop if I don't have time then I'll come back later if I have any question yeah perfect timing thanks Sam and really interesting to have that inside information of what what's likely to come it's not just what the ban we've seen now but the predictions of yeah there might be further further restrictions coming so very important to have this further discussion so yeah thank you Sam and we'll go over to our third panelist for this panel for David so David I'm interested to tackle this further looking at importing countries in other regions as well so what can importers do to minimize the impact of the shocks for example these export restrictions and even more if we if what Sam sort of predicts happens and how can they deal with the impact even of the Alnino and also what are what do you see as advantages or disadvantages to the exporting countries of restricting trade because if Sam just gave an example in India it didn't actually have the effect that they were hoping so if you can unravel all of this David that would be fantastic thank you over to you okay thank you very much Joanna yeah so yeah export restrictions and and the weather particularly the Alnino that's coming or that's here already are the two biggest factors affecting the world rice market right now importers are vulnerable but let me focus a little bit first on on exporters because I mean the exporters also have constraints to consider they can't just impose restrictions without facing consequences in their own domestic markets and now in theory there's benefits and costs to export restrictions the benefits are that they keep prices domestic prices down now Sam has shown that that hasn't started to happen yet in India hopefully it does eventually I mean experience based on other export bands show that that our export restrictions do generally put some kind of a lid on prices so hopefully that starts to take effect in in India soon but there's there's also costs that exporters face they can't just impose restrictions without expecting consequences in their own domestic market the first one is that it hurts their farmers that it puts a lid on on the prices received by farmers and one example of this recently is what happened in Indonesia when they put export restrictions on palm oil farmers got very upset because because the domestic prices that they were receiving collapsed quite a bit and so that's that's one constraint that that countries have to consider when imposing these export restrictions another consequence that they have to face is that it can erode their market share on the world market other when export restrictions are put in place international prices tend to rise other countries want to rush in and and get some of that market and it erodes the market share of the country imposing the export restriction and then finally a third consequence is that importing countries see this and they typically then will they get concerned and they put in place domestic programs to increase production and that in that decreases the overall size of the export market for the exporters because there's a lot of emphasis on becoming self-sufficient so these these restrictions are these these consequences affect exporting countries now they affect different exporting countries differently and it's mainly the the magnitude of the impact will depend on the ratio of exports to domestic production um among the four biggest rice exporters um pakistan and thailand have the biggest share of exports in domestic production and so i think it we're the least likely to see those countries impose restrictions because about you know roughly 40 percent in the case of thailand or even more in the case of pakistan of their of their domestic production goes to export and so they're not really helping their domestic food security so much with restrictions but they are really hurting their farmers so we're we're not too likely to see export restrictions from those countries now india and vietnam uh their share of exports in domestic production is a little bit less or it's a it's a fair bit less it's it's still substantial it's maybe 15 to 20 percent or a little bit more um but so that's still substantial enough to have an impact on on their domestic markets so they've got to be a little bit a little bit careful um one reason that we maybe haven't seen the effect on india so far is that they've been trying to be careful and not in not imposed broad sweeping restrictions on rice which is a good thing for the world market but then maybe has less of an impact on on their domestic price structure so i think so those those are the main things i wanted to say about exporting countries just briefly in terms of importing countries because i think that will be addressed later by by some other speakers uh it will be important to especially also in terms of of managing possible impacts of el nino it'll be very important to manage water um water resources properly trying to share as best as possible resources between upstream and downstream because those water resources will be important in the event of the dry conditions that are are likely especially in indonesia and the philippines um drought tolerant seeds are are important and and just longer term it will be important to invest you know for for importing countries in particular um to invest in agricultural research to increase competitiveness and and productivity of their domestic farmers so that they their domestic production situation is healthier so i think i'll i'll stop there joanna thank thank you thank you very much david that was useful um more dimensions to the issues that you brought there and um governments may have one particular need for a policy but then there's all the other external factors that come into play um and then when you ended on talking about also the whole el nino which brings in another whole dimension again and the the need for the research there so so thank you very much and thank you to harrell sam and david that finishes panel one session um but we only have two panels so please add your questions um for any of those panelists as we go uh while we start the second panel um now this is going to be we've talked about a lot of the the actual issues and concerns that have come from this now we're going to focus a lot more on the solutions so the second panel is about charting a resilient parts a strategy for ensuring a stable rice trade amidst um these export disruptions um and it'll be looking at innovative strategies collaborative approaches um to navigate this shifting rice um trade landscape um so allow me to introduce the panelists uh we have under secretary mercedita sombila so mercy is the under secretary for policy planning and regulations at the department of agriculture in the philippines and her research areas have included both macro and micro perspectives on agriculture and trade lovely to see you again mercy um great um now we also have on the panel dr u n du an to an um so u n is the director general of the international cooperation department and which is under the ministry of agriculture and rural development in vietnam um u n was also previously the director general of the institute for policy and strategy for agriculture and rural development so uh we'll have some excellent insights um expected from u n um also on the panel dr flora dan lisa bode so lisa is the deputy executive director for special concerns on the implementation of rice competitive enhancement fund for the philippines rice research institute um more commonly known as phil rice um so welcome to you as well lisa and we have a big panel we have one more panelist um so we also have dr abdel ismail um abdel is iri's um africa regional director um and um he's coming in from kenya there hi abdel um so because we've got a big panel each panelist has between six to seven minutes in total to answer all the questions that i'll give you um and if necessary i'll give you a little nudge if uh if we need to um move move a little faster um but i'd like to start with mercy um so um mercy is our under secretary particularly um important the insights that you will have and i'm looking forward to that um we'd like to explore with you these issues obviously from the government perspective and policy perspective so in the context of the philippines i'd like to ask you how might government to government deals for rice between the philippines and other potential exporting countries be impacted um and what economic factors should the philippines government consider when negotiating such deals to ensure a stable and secure rice supply which we all want um while also mitigating all the risks that arise from the global trade dynamics and i'm sure the lessons from the philippines can be really valuable for all countries so looking forward to hearing hearing your approaches there over to you under secretary yeah thank you thank you jane and uh good afternoon to everyone uh nice to see you know colleagues from eerie uh so uh yes uh when when well of course you know the the the global crisis already started way back 2022 and we have already been seeing you know some impact of the you know of the uh ukrain russia crisis you know on on uh on food prices then you know all of a sudden you know uh this were very much more affected when india uh announced the export ban sometime in july 2020 uh in 20 july 2023 and then of course we have this impending which has already been you know announced to be really coming in you know to be to be uh to to really take you know take effect you know the el nino towards the third quarter towards the fourth quarter and going into the first quarter of uh of the of the of the year 2024 so of course the the philippines has always been in that importing countries in the past in the last last year we imported something like you know close to three million metric tons uh as of june the sea river already imported 1.2 1.3 million metric tons but you know because of this impending of this you know developing events we really need to secure a little bit more imports on the production side we are not we're really much very much concerned because we we we have already done some interventions we are more concerned about the the el nino which will which is supposed to come in the in the last part of the of the of the of the year but by then because of the interventions that we're doing we have already you know put in place you know some uh uh interventions like early planting early distribution of seeds so we're expecting uh uh harvest even before that the el nino picks at that time so we are still expecting very slight probably so you know on the local side but still you know we need to you know to to to beef up the production beef up this local production with the imports so what we did actually is that you know the republic act 11203 doesn't allow any more government to government importation so what we are trying to do now is really to encourage our private sector to do the importation and there are several interventions that we are you know we have been putting in place to do this uh you know dfa and you probably have heard about you know some of the uh key officials in the department of agriculture going to india you know to to really secure the surfaces to be bought by the private sector and then we are now trying to talk with boc our bureau of customs to provide super green lane so that they you know any importers of rice will not you know have your difficulty getting you know the rice uh imports you know into the into the country and uh of course uh we are looking also at uh you know at the extending the 1010 provides uh the same mfn uh tariff rates to uh this is the same tariff rates as in atiga which is 35 percent to mfn country which is india pakistan and all other countries so those are the interventions that we are looking at you know to to you know encourage more uh imports you know from from other countries uh we have already uh i think the the relationship between the country between the philippines and the vietnam is very very good so that you know uh government uh agreement for for more importation from vietnam will probably you know will will will have to happen there has been uh you know when when this uh when this news broke out about indian uh exports being banned we heard from traders that there were already you know some contracts that have been withdrawn by the vietnamist traders but i think you know with this government uh relationship with with these two government relations if you be being good i think we will be able to you know to secure you know those uh uh contracts that have been made earlier you know to to really push through so in terms of really trying to see you know what what factors we are you know we're looking at in terms of you know trying to get this imports of course the domestic transparency in terms of the supply and demand so what we are now you know giving to the president uh we have already you know uh providing him uh quarterly you know situation of supply and demand so that he would know how to react with with markets so he knows exactly how much we would be needing and he knows exactly when to you know to talk with the private sector uh the prices of course you know uh when when we try to we will try to negotiate with the government the department of foreign affairs for example we'll try to talk with our vietnam and uh uh indian uh partners you know to as much as possible give reasonable prices of right sources the the source of course the distance you know and and the reliability the quality and the safety you know the the food uh the the rice commodity being says are also you know uh being taken into consideration we still provide the uh sanitary fight to sanitary import clearances but with rtl the 11 ra 11203 this has been you know very much more automatic so within seven days it doesn't really you know need to be cleared by our bureau plant industry anymore so once it lapses the seven days it's automatically you know cleared and the the clearance you know the permit to import is already you would already uh go on underway so uh we are not you know as you can see from the presentation uh or from the from the presentation of the previous one but we see already prices leveling off uh so and I think you know the the reactions of exporters will probably you know at certain levels because of the of the repercussions also that would you know uh that would also you know uh take place you know in their domestic areas so uh I think you know right now the question that was asked of me yesterday is you know why because right now we only for august and for september we have only about 30 35 days to last you know in terms of our inventory of stocks and in september it's about 40 45 and so the question that was asked of me yesterday in the in the uh hearing is that why if if you say that we don't have any shortage in rise you you say that we have 35 40 what is your benchmark in terms of really you know uh uh you know uh benchmark as to why you you know insist to have you know to to get these imports in and said it's for security reasons you know in case there are some you know um uh other events that may take place which you know which are which we you know uh which may happen we at least have a little bit more so I was you know I mentioned something like 40 50 to 60 days of uh suck inventory that is also in preparation for the El Nino event that may really affect the the domestic uh production of rise if it happens really in in in the first semester of 2024 so I live at that Joanna thank you very much okay thank you so much under secretary and very interesting to see part of your solutions and interventions were both from the public sector as well as the private industry and bringing those two together to and by the sounds of it was effective so yeah excellent to hear about that so thank you under secretary um okay so we'll go to the next um the next panelist um so Dr Lisa Bordi um we'd like um we'd like to see if you could focus more on the production side now um and how do you feel that the ban will influence the production strategies and as well as the agricultural policies adopted by the Philippine government especially in terms of its approach to enhance domestic rice production and ensuring the food security and and the second part is if um are there any lessons learned from similar historical instances that can guide the Philippine government and I expect other governments too in their decision making process to effectively respond to to these sort of external trade dynamics so over to you Lisa thank you thanks Joanna first of all I would like to thank Erie for inviting me on this very important discussion well just to give you uh the Philippine context let me remind you that our country is relatively young in terms of participating in liberalized international trade of rice it took us more than two decades to shed our trade policy on quantitative restriction replace it with tariff and be more reliant on the global market to augment our local production so prior to the RTL changes in international prices were not that easily transmitted to the domestic market and even after it is it has been enacted the rice tarification law uh during the early stage of its implementation it still takes about two to three months before the changes in the international price to be felt within the domestic market so it's quite new for us to experience this uh sudden transmission of severe fluctuation in the world price to our domestic market so when india announced its export ban on non basmati white rice our initial reaction was to wait and see and after all the imports of the philippines coming from india is just less than one percent majority of our imports are supplied by our asean neighbors but it is quite another story when the price of vietnam and phy rice have reached the levels of five hundred dollar a ton in july and six hundred dollar a ton in august i think many of the import contracts that we have now are being renegotiated and thus the import arrival in the country has dwindled since july and i think it continues until this august and it is also very unfortunate that this happened during the lean months when our monthly ending stack of rice is very thin as so we have the harvest season is yet to start in september and it will pick in october november hence the domestic market is very nervous which fuels speculations and just this week we are hearing farm gate prices of fatty rice of about 23 to 25 pesos per kilogram and at the retail price it already breached about 50 pesos per kilogram so this is already higher than the previous record in july which is just at 46 pesos per kilogram so on the other hand we hope that these high current prices will eventually encourage or stimulate our farmers to produce more particularly in the short run and as for our domestic policies to increase our local production we have been preparing for the imminent impact of the El Mino even before the announcement of the export ban so just this 2023 wet season we were able to distribute almost 2.4 million bags of certified seed under the combined inbred seed support of the rice competitiveness enhancement fund and of the da national rice program and this is expected to plant almost 1.1 million hectares this wet season similarly the national rice program has positioned hybrid seeds for almost 786,000 hectares as well as fertilizer discount vouchers to augment the fertilizer application of our farmers because of this we have good expectation for the wet season harvest this 2023 despite the effect of typhoon doxery this last july we are also about to roll our 2024 production support starting this september and we about 1.77 million bags of certified inbred seeds will be distributed again to dry season planters and this is expected to plant more than 800,000 hectares in addition the national rice program will also provide hybrid and fertilizer support to another 842,000 hectares in irrigated areas we are also calibrating our strategies to make this production support more accessible to farmers through clustering approach and government convergence of the government interventions we are also mainstreaming our climate change adaptation strategies as we intend to increase the production share of the dry season relative to the wet season to minimize the production damage due to inclement weather and typhoons similarly we are improving the targeting of our that targeting of the location of our production support during the dry season especially with the coming El Nino so that we will choose areas that are less affected by drought finally we are leveraging digital transformation to efficiently and effectively implement these strategies thus with or without the export ban the Philippine government will continue its program to improve its local production capacity and consequently the country's food security especially in rice i think that will be all that i will share for this afternoon thank you for listening all right uh thank thank you very much uh Lisa that was fantastic and good to have that case study um obviously there's a lot of activity to keep production going um and always going to be critical so so thank you um so we'll take us different tack now we moved from the Philippines over to Vietnam and to Dr UN and also Dr UN's going to give us a little more insight from the private sector perspective um so the private sector has always had a vital role to play in similar global market issues and we've heard some today um so the question to you Dr UN is with the Vietnamese government's historical reliance on government to government agreements for rice trade how might the export restrictions restrictions prompt a reconsideration on to bring the private sector role more strongly into this um in rice trade and distribution and also if you could tackle the issue on what potential benefits and challenges could arise from the increased um private sector participation in ensuring a stable rice supply for Vietnam and and also even how might the government balance its traditional approach with the advantages that the private sector can can bring if they're involved and brought to the table so um I'm afraid that Dr UN is probably having some technical difficulties so we might go to the next panelist and then see if Dr UN if he comes back okay all right and if actually it's Dr UN isn't able to come back if um if our our board chair doctor that would like to even make some comments that would be great but otherwise yes right now we'll move on to um the final panelist in this panel session um Dr Abdel Ismail so Abdel um we have the advantage now of moving to Africa um and so some insights from Africa would be highly valuable in this so how do you see that the African governments can effectively leverage government to government rice trade agreements to bolster domestic rice production and strengthen the regional food security and also what role does economic cooperation among African nations play in creating a resilient rice trade network that can adapt to that whole global trade fluctuations and ensure a stable rice supply for the continent in Africa so over to you Abdel to learn all about Africa thank you thank you thank you so much Joanne and thank you for this opportunity um yeah let me start with the African paradox actually the continent now first of all over 60 percent of the world unused out of the land the largest in the world but cannot still feed itself uh this is mainly because of low yields poor power management practices distortion of markets it's really terrible here and also um all of it is leading to dependence on the importance of food uh and agricultural inputs and and rice is one major one because now it's starting playing a major role in the food security of the continent so this makes Africa exceptionally more more fragile and more sensitive to prices so far in Africa about two two and a half years ago is important about five point five billion dollar equivalent of price across the whole sub-saharan region now this year this climbed to about seven billion dollars per year so you can see the huge impact already uh and uh so the gap between clearly the gap between production and consumption is increasing and to continue increasing and especially now the fragility of Africa actually is reflected in the previous issues that have happened before and you expect this also to add to that and this is very clear during the 2007 2008 and also 2010 2011 food price prices where the influence have been shown very clearly on Africa not only because of the price rise but also because of the limited resources of the countries to be able to compete into the international trade when the prices are too high and uh several countries at that time also impose important funds including India and the price availability in the international trade market also was very low at that time the second case is what happened during COVID-19 or well initially studies have shown that price price was not probably severely affected as other food crops but in some countries it happened really increases the price and reduces the availability of rice and then we have Ukraine and I see which affected all foods for Africa and also input which is very important here in Africa especially fertilizers because most of it is imported and now we are facing this challenge of India ban on non vast materialized because India is still a major supplier of rice for many countries especially in West Africa, Senegal, Kote Duvall, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Genie and so on so we expect this to also start competing in the available rice from other countries which will automatically raise the price for the whole continent. So how can Africa leverage government government trade agreements? I think this is very critical and actually these effects sometimes could be positive because they trigger countries and also regions to start rethinking their strategy so the country in Sub-Saharan Africa really now needs to improve their local production and quality of their produce. They have to reduce the production cost and increase competitiveness of the rice that is locally produced to be able to compete with the incoming rice from outside and I think what happened is rice in Africa is used to aid and also kind of deep import and that actually make it very difficult for local production to cope with the quality and price of imported rice. Just to give you an example since 2000 the average fertilizer used in Africa is about 20 kilograms per hectare and based on the Abuya declaration in 2006 the country wanted to increase that to 50 kilograms per hectare but it's still the same thing if you compare it to the rice with the world average of 170 kilograms per hectare. So the continent is really lagging behind this aspect. The second thing is the African countries need to build trust between them and to harmonize their agriculture policies and guidelines to remove the tariff and non-tariff restrictions that are existing now and affecting the free movement of food for modalities including rice to allow kind of free trade in both agricultural input as well as rice seed and also grain commercial price production. The Abuya declaration also showed that there should be complete elimination of these restrictions but still it didn't happen. So it's the policies that are present but are not being implemented well. The neighboring companies countries for sure they need to harmonize their policies and to collaborate rather than to collaborate rather than competing as what is happening right now and I think this is the only way for Africa really to increase and both their production is really they have to focus now more on how the continent becomes self-sufficient or at least regions become self-sufficient in their rice production the resources are there respect water climate and land. The other thing is also Africa will have to engage more with Asia and other rice producing countries even in Latin America. There are some agreements now with Brazil for example through South South collaboration and one good example that can be quite useful for Africa is to use out both our initiatives to start in Asia. Unfortunately enough we see a lot of this is leading an interest for some African countries especially from countries under the East African community try to embrace this agreement and also this will allow them to reach out to varieties and seeds and knowledge from Asian countries as well as being able to share it within the region at least. So we need to work on adopting local policies. We need to also look at ways where we can shorten the value chain and streamline it. The objective should be how can we really maximize the benefit for farmers. Now farmers in Africa they are getting only about 30% of the total revenue of the rice value chain. If you compare this to India for example and other Asian countries it is more than 60%. So farmers do not have the incentive really to also invest a lot in Africa. The role of economic cooperation between countries and also countries and regions that are among countries across the Saharan African probably continental. I think most of these are in place with policies and strategies that have been established for a long time especially through the regional economic communities including the East African community, the South African development community, the commissar, the Iqours, EGAD and so on. So policies are there. They actually allow free movement of fertilizers, free movement of seeds, change of knowledge but these policies have never been implemented and that is as I said many defaults of the restrictions that are happening now. The second thing is the you'll have to summarize or close Abdel. Thank you. This is also at the continental level. We have FARA and also the UN, the African Union and the African Union Commission also have developed strategies that can help free movement but most important what I want to say is the African continental free trade agreement which is really excellent but again have not been implemented well and the aim of that one is really to have a one African market with free movement of labor, input, priorities and seeds. So as you can see there is lots of opportunities for for Africans these regulations are implemented to improve the movement of material to movement of knowledge and also to kind of leverage areas where certain crops can be more productive than others and look at it at regional and also at the continental level rather than at the continental level. Okay, thank you. So other countries see that also right is really an assistive one where they conform back on it and this is what happened last year here in Kenya. Yeah and there's a lot I know that it's very hard for you to cover a whole continent in many many countries but I think we've got a flavor that was really really helpful Abdel. The whole engagement side still needing for production to increase as well and many aspects so so so thanks Abdel and yeah I'm really pleased that we have Dr Uyen Thuan back online so Dr Uyen you were going to give us a perspective from from the Vietnam side and about how the private sector engagement how things might change in Vietnam how they might engage the private sector more what impacts that would have what benefits and challenges so over to you we're interested to hear hear a whole different perspective from Vietnam so thank you. Okay thank you Master. Good afternoon everyone it's my pleasure to get the invitation from Edie to join with a very interesting seminar. In Vietnam I think now I've already received some questions suggested by Zors and let me brief a little bit the situation of price for in Vietnam as well as the policy intention of the government in Vietnam you know that we a good producer price and the even though the area for high production has been reduced from 4.1 million hectares to at this moment just around 3.8 3.9 million hectares of price price land but with the improved productivity we still have the growth of total output of price so every year we can export about 6 to 7 billion tons of price and with the quality of Vietnamese rice has been improved a lot that's that's what the reason that now the rice pork price of Vietnam has been increased with the last of 5 to 7 billion at this moment more than 80 percent of our patty has been using the certified seed price with high quality and for rice production we are also thinking of how to improve the income of rice farmer by promoting more things you know high quality rice but also like intercopying of rice like rice fish, rice shrimp, rice with vegetable so even though we are fixed by law we fixed the rice land like about 3.5 million hectares of rice land but farmer can use the rice land by flexible with rice shrimp, rice shrimp, rice fish, for rice vegetable but they still keep it is the real rice land so in the case that if the market price is good they produce more rice if the market price is not so good they can reduce the area for rice production and they mix the rice with you know shrimp and fish and vegetable so with the very good production of rice at this moment in Vietnam we have no export restriction policy at this point and our focus even in the strategy for rice sector as well as the latest decision by the prime minister that we focus on improving the quality of rice try to develop our own planning of rice and try to keep very good relation with our importance including the Philippines Indonesia and also China and other countries and one of the questions you put for me is that how can we I mean like control the rice cost as well as the price of rice if it may have some negative impact on the domestic consumer in fact in Vietnam this one we have no administrative control policy or intervention into the rice market we already removed rice for quota I think long time ago instead we had new decree that we specify some criteria that the rice market must comply like they might have you know some very good storage system they have good relationship or good contract with a farmer group they can have to ensure certain type of quality of rice before they can register for this one and I mean it's a very let's say a kind of more with market mechanism that administers the administrative control of rice and we also promote the rice for enterprises in different ways like we participate strongly with market especially like with the EU and some other country we provide the market formation market analysis and we have other types of support in terms of infrastructure logistic credit extension service and we highly encourage the rice spotter to have the let's say the contract or the value chain integration with farmer group and the farmer cooperative so as our head of the state already declared very clearly in the UN food system submit 2021 that Vietnam would like to become transparent responsible and sustainable supplier of food to the world so one question people may ask about how we can I may step behind the price in the domestic market the two things we may apply in the case of you know very high rice price we have a policy of let's say storage or let's say not sorry but reservation of rice like rice spotter or enterprises they must they must let's say reserve certain percentage of the volume of rice that they procure from farmer before they eat so we have also the public reservation system that we ensure in apricot we have enough rice for the domestic market and we have a special policy for the poor like especially the poor ethnic minority in the remote area like in the forestry sector we have the food for work program for the forestry and also policy especially for the poor we can provide rice freely to the poor farmer in case of emergency so that's some story of Vietnam I will share with you and I'm very open to any questions you have thank you wonderful thank you thank you Dr UN some big goals that Vietnam has there okay so we've finished with the the second panel so and well on time which is excellent so it gives a really good amount of time for for the questions but I particularly want to thank all the panelists the wealth of insights the discussion you know truly sort of provides a useful multi-stakeholder regional and country level analysis and and what could really supplement and complement on growing discussions on this matter so now a reminder for questions if people can put their questions in the Q&A section anybody can put their questions there only the panelists and organizers can see the questions and if you can say who you would like the question to go to and I'd like to ask panelists to answer within one to two minutes so that we can have more questions which would be good and I think Marco is going to help with this section with the questions Marco should we I mean Bruce Tolentino had a good broad overview question which could be useful for that one what was that let's start with that one indeed okay good so I'll read it out and either or will you want to read it out Marco I'm not sure how you wanted to do this up to you but I let me just read it out to Bruce Tolentino of the central bank of the Philippines is asking and this is for Sam and for Harold because it was asked in that presentation part he is asking to what extent has India actually implemented its ban on exports of non basmati varieties are they honoring existing supply agreements are they also cognizant of the domestic impacts of such a ban given the domestic political impacts of an export ban now Sam has already partially answered it but Sam you might want to step in and give us a little bit more insight into this question okay thank you Marco yes thank you Bruce for the question there as I wrote I just answered India has strictly enforcing commercial export ban on non basmati varieties there are news that there are 200,000 tons of cargoes sitting in some airport some ports because of the it arrived after the July 20th there but as I told there are discussions going on the Bangladesh Nepal probably in Philippines there's delegation coming as uh meditates told so there will be some G2G export but as of now there's strict enforcement of export ban of non basmati varieties since July 20th there in terms of domestic you know the the rice, potato, onion, tomato these are all kind of very essential commodities in Indian Indian context there India will be ruthless as I said in terms of imposing any sort of restriction without considering its global implications to ensure that their domestic availability is there the prices are lower because the onion it's you know I think the onion export ban you see onion alone can bring down the government if the prices are higher it is only to 30 rupees per kg as compared to in Philippines it's 200 you know 200 pesos per kg but consumers are very sensitive to all this basic commodity price there I think the domestically they're looking you know they they want to ensure that the prices of these essential commodities rice, wheat, potato, tomato, onion they remain very stable until next May starting from this month onwards thank you Sam then we have a question from Sam and that question is for Tuan and Sam asks Tuan could you inform us under what circumstance Vietnam would consider imposing export restrictions? At this moment we have no attention or there's no signal for government to impose the export restriction. That's that's a very clear and concise answer thank you very much please note that if you have further questions you can use the Q&A function that you can find at the bottom of your zoom screen maybe you have some other questions that came to you through some other channels in the meantime Mr sorry another question for Tuan and this comes from Mercedes Sombia who asks Tuan just wanted to get first hand info from you after the announcement of the India export ban we heard from our importers that contracts made with Vietnamese exporters reneged their contracts so maybe you could react to the it also the announcement of the India export ban we heard from our importers that contracts made with Vietnamese exporters reneged these contracts so canceled the contracts I mean it's a very market story because when you know the when the company they work with each other like Vietnamese company the exporter they may need to consider both the price they can sell to the importer and the price they have to buy from farmer or from the local trader so in case that if the the the the price they they buy from the local farmer is higher than the price that they already negotiated the contract with the importer I think in this case they had to renegotiate or they had to they let the contract and they even in that case I mean it's just a very commercial relationship and they have to pay the five other kind of things and I don't think that the such like the Vietnamese exporter they cancel the contract with the importer because of the government policy it's a very market story thank you we have another question from Harold Harold why don't you turn your camera and your microphone on so you ask your question instead of me reading out loud go ahead thanks Marco Sam I think this is when we're trying to organize this presentation in fact when we had a presentation with at Erie back last august 7th so David actually informed us that you know I just learned about this agreement between India and the Maldives you know about this that they have an agreement that around 118,000 metric tons will be like a commitment by India you know so could be exported to the Maldives every year for a period of three years regardless of any future restrictions that might be put in place I mean in the current export ban so any comments on that no India will honor any such of agreement you know I was told that Bangladesh Nepal Maldives the rise will be exported to G to G so this agreement M to Maldives is a very strategical country politically also so I think it will be honored they have already very clear that G to G any such a prior agreement with the government will be honored okay thanks okay you're not off the hook yet go Harold so stay on camera because we have another question for you and for Sam from Ms. Borday and Ms. Borday why don't you turn on your microphone and your and your camera so that you can ask the question yourself go ahead I'm just wondering based on Sam's presentation earlier that a worse a worse scenario what could happen if the India would consider banning even the parboiled and even the basmati rise so how much do you think with the will the international price of rise increase if this happens yes you know Lisa it's all about domestic price India is just hung up on the domestic price to go down I was told that this month India has unloaded more than 5 million tons of rice from the food corpus of India they bought the low reserve price down so that there is enough supplies to bring the prices down it's all about the prices now consumer prices which is continued to be very rigid and does not go down as I showed consumer prices continue to retail prices continue to rise there if that continues they're already considering parboiled rise some sort of export tax at initial stage and minimum export price for basmati I don't think basmati will be banned basmati will be still be exported because it's not a sensitive commodity for the majority of the commoners there but parboiled rise may be banned you know eventually the price does not go down will be banned there I think I think it will be it all I don't think Indian export ban alone will cause the price spike even if the parboiled rise it all that's what I was asking to one how when under what circumstance Vietnam will react whether the Indian parboiled rise ban will make them react you know Vietnam is one of the country very sensitive to their domestic food security they're always the first one to put export restriction there if Vietnam does Cambodia will do it Myanmar do it the three countries they will do it together they just follow Vietnam there then is that ripple effect will have much more impact than India and export ban alone you know it just it will create much more panic that parboiled export ban here but India as I said India will be ruthless in terms of whatever the policy they can implement to make sure the domestic price goes down thank you Sam we have the next question also for you Sam and that question will be asked by our chair of our board of trustees Dr. Karl Dupfatt go ahead Dr. Dupfatt thank you I think any government has objective reason to change policy it is not really purely political reason so very important for us to to have clear information or view of rise production around the world so especially in India in this case so would you some inform us a little bit about more about that and I fully agree with you if India is going to ban further and international price will go up further it will lead to increase in domestic prices in Vietnam in 2008 around and April 2008 prices domestic prices of rise in Vietnam almost doubled and that in that case Vietnam government pro no ban further signing of contracts export contracts by that time we signed it three million total so no further signing and I fully agree with you they will be combining of change in India in Vietnam and then in Myanmar or someone else that will lead to panic we need to to have to have good view of rise production and supply in the world and inform the governments inform the one community to avoid misinformation in 2008 there was misinformation and that's why you know panic in many countries even in Vietnam I could not believe that in Vietnam someone believe many people believe that we do not have enough rise yeah so sorry for taking time no no thank you thank you Dr. Fat you know good to see you and good to see you are so active still now in rise there and I think let me give you the Indian production situation right now in the current season which is accounts for nearly 80% of the Indian production this is the main crop there Indian production will be normal this year they will still hit 135 million ton India in the last 15 years they have kind of monsoon proof the rise the rise is not impacted by drought anymore that much you know there's more than 75% area is irrigated and main this main states where rice is produced main surplus states the irrigation is 90 to 100 percent there so drought has very minimal impact last year India has a very severe drought in major UP you know major potato sorry rice growing states there it has no impact on the production India ended up producing a record production there so I don't think drought will have much impact on Indian rice production going forward there so I expect given that drought is the major concern going ahead now so you know we are kind of out of the flooding flood season there I think Indian production will be normal in in this Caribbean season there many people are speaking about any no but any no will take place not you know dry season and you know it will be around rainy season so maybe little less rain so in Vietnam I can inform you that rice production will be at least normal or even high got correct so so I think we I would like to ask you to have you know overview of rice production around the world and to inform the governments and public that would be very helpful too I really afraid of situation as Sam suggested that that India Vietnam and many countries do you know you know panic policy change that would be very bad for the world no I wrote a blog saying that don't blame India for putting export ban there okay India has every right to put export ban they have to see that 1.4 billion people exactly and and any government would do you know and there is objective reason for that it's not really only simple and political consideration all right then we have a question out of Africa for Sam and Harold and the question will be asked by Abdel Abdel please go ahead yeah thanks Marco Sam and Harold there is a real panic right now and African countries probably need some advice so what will be your advice to them in these situations did they really panic or what kind of policies they should do although they are now focusing more on general production and the second question is how about the countries that have already international trade agreements with rights for different countries in exchange of commodities do you think these countries will honor these agreements how do you want to answer oh so I think well I'll try so but I believe Sam you'd be in the best position but I think there's some advice I remember back in 2008 no I mean I'm not sure whether still the issue there is for African countries about you know low-irrigation covariates high fertilizer costs and poor transport infrastructure maybe those during that time those are constraining the supply response to to to higher prices so I think the best advice there is just to ensure that you know there is a high-irrigation covariates and you know addressing the the high fertilizer there and improving the infrastructure maybe you know both public and private investment in irrigation could you know could help there and yeah I think the when I look at the the growth in terms of production there is still I mean I mean the the the production growth rates they're you know required to to hold imports at the current levels are you know are very high so so to reduce maybe like for example imports at the regional or sub-national level then I think that requires a highly improbable growth rates you know to to achieve you know high high production growth rates so I think I leave to I leave it to Sam to comment on maybe the government to government agreement there in Africa thank you Abdel for the question. Thank you Abdel for your question there but I think as I said India really does not have a production its supply is too domestically you know there's rice in the storage the rice on the ground which which is going to be normal production there I believe that India will continue to export non-basmuthi through G2G either in the short run African country should approach just like Philippine delegation coming to India African country should approach India if for food security perspective I think India will export non-basmuthi and parabolic rice this even even if there is a ban there India will continue the ban until next May this is my guesstimate you know I really don't have the inside but until the general election is over despite we have enough sort production there they will continue to control the quantity of rice going out of the country so I think the export ban on white rice particularly will continue until next May irrespective of the domestic situation there you know for me I have always argued that Asia has kept Africa on the life support we you know Asian country will subsidize input and keep the production low so the India can export $400 rice and the African country can never produce $400 rice so they become dependent on Asia for their rice in rice imports there somehow African country needs to get the add together they have land their water they can definitely be producing more rice for their own consumption there I think there's a good governance has to play a big role in terms of expanding production there domestically there thank you Sam and thank you Harold for answering that question about Africa I see that there's a contribution by our director general Ajay Kohli and of course we counterproductive career wise to skip that so Ajay please turn on your microphone and your camera so we can have your contribution yeah Bush Marco don't don't bring in you know the wielding the position effect into this so I just have a plain question for Sam and which is that while your emphasis on election-based control of price in India is obviously a main driving factor I just wonder if there is a sense in terms of the other political aspects of you know the much more increased imports by China for example that's one and in some or the other way using this as kind of a muscle flexing for more stronger positions in certain WTO agreements as well just kind of you know these are tangential aspects from from what we have heard during the discussion today but do these have a role or or they don't have a role I just wanted to get your feedback maybe perhaps David also if he if he has some input into this thank you Ajay Ajay I think right now at this point that what you said about the political muscles are there may be long term but right now India is battling the domestic price inflation food price inflation you saw tomato price onion price we have export ban on wheat now partial ban on rice export tax on onion so everything you know it's all now short run price is very important from domestic perspective we have election coming in November in MP some of the key BJP states there you know current production that goes until next May there I I believe right now what India is acting not any sort of political mileage internationally it's mostly survival domestically the food prices you know very sensitive in India the people you know the onion price can break the government therefore get out rice so they are battling the domestic threat in terms of the food inflation domestically how to control it thank you Sam and then we have a question from Dr. Twan Dr. Twan please go ahead okay thank you very much before my question I just had some command I mean for the the one international rice market I mean as I remember it's very cheap market total trade of price at the cow for less than 20 percent the total global output of price so just a small intervention by certain government can make a shock or de-stabilize the international rice market so we already see that in the last 15 or 20 years most of the stock coming from government not due to drought or to flood somewhere so I think that we better have a more coordination mechanism the sharing information about the supply of I mean some certain country big country very good analysis very good projection and advice to government I think it should be I mean early play Tibetan road in this point or lie in the demand sky like in Vietnam beside the Z to Z I still remember a suggestion by a former DZ Dr. Dakin said that we should move from the Z to Z contract to a investment partner system like between the Philippines with Vietnam Indonesia Vietnam right okay you set up the the the investment contract like you set up the price the quality the volume the time you need and you put some money and then our Vietnamese farmer they are ready to to to grow rice for you so I think it's another way that to to have it a lot to de-stabilize the international rice market as well as serving the demand of importing country and in Vietnam now we also were working with FAO or also on the diploma country to establish the South South cooperation mechanism with African country I mean including we already know that Mozambique Cameroon Uganda come to Vietnam to ask us to to promote the South South cooperation mechanism in the dry production and in the even in the domestic market I think in terms of rice shortage I mean as the policy writer we may think that how to have more targeted efforts especially for the poor consumer as well as for the poor farmer to have enough rice in case of emergency so that's some of my command for how to to de-stabilize the rice market itself to have a better market mechanism to work together and my question here for Sam is that what do you expect in the government to remove the rice market maybe after the election or or not yeah yeah yes after the election I don't expect the the non basmati rice export ban to be removed until next May I would say thank you may for the India in the interest of time the final question by miss Borday to David miss Borday please go ahead and turn your camera and your microphone on my question is for David if he thinks that the temporary lowering of tariff rate in the Philippines be a good instrument to subdue price speculation in our domestic market yes thank you Lisa I mean in theory in theory that should should help to lower prices but I worry a little bit about doing it in the current environment especially now with the rumors that that Sam was talking about of having more restrictions on exports from India because because lowering those tariffs might contribute to some kind of a sense of create a sense of panic on the international market that's that's a bit too strong but I think it it moves in that direction we I think it's it can be self-defeating for the Philippines just itself never mind the effects on other countries but but lowering those things may may fuel a sense of panic and I I mean it depends on what's happening I guess to domestic prices in the in the Philippines but but I would be careful I think with and in normal circumstances I think that would be a good idea but I think right now I would be careful with doing that thank you Dave um we've gone well over time but we still have a lot of people online so I hand over to Joanna for some concluding remarks here all right great thank you Marco and a huge appreciation to our board chair Dr. Fat and all the panelists and of course all the attendees we've heard a lot today so we're not going to summarize but you know there's different components that we talked about the critical role of the public sector the critical role of having relationships globally the private industry and we did hear a little bit about although it would have been nice to have more about even the role of R&D organizations like Erie and the talk about the need for more up-to-date critical information that's going to impact on those economic forces how that can impact how that can contribute to better policy and also the whole production side how R&D organizations can help with that but I think I wanted to end in just one comment which was mentioned but it's really important to always bring all of our conversations back to this that to remember that this discussion isn't just about policy or or any of the other factors it's actually about people's livelihoods and whether or not they can afford to put food on their plate and not go to bed hungry and I heard a lot of passion from the panelists and speakers today and we know that why this issue is so critical so thank you for everybody for your contributions it was a huge effort for all the organizers to put this together so quickly and I hope we can do more of this so thank you okay by the end of this year we will organize the international rise festival in Ho Xiong Covid in the Mekong Delta so I would like to inform you to add that important value to come to join with very important international rise festival in Vietnam the Prime Minister will come and I think he may say on some very important declaration about our point of view in the rise market and I will send you the official letter invitation later here I just would like to inform you that we will organize very important event by the end of this year on international rise festival thank you very much can I just come in for 30 seconds and say that we take very much seriously on board the comment that Dr Farth made that as a result of this entire exercise and our understanding both academic and theoretical and practical and modeling aspects we should really put out as our understanding of the production and supply aspects and and give out the information you know is there anything to worry at all or not while we totally understand sometimes guesstimates about the export ban being in place till the next election we also need to have a clear view on on the supply and the production aspect so that people can make their own guesses and take that forward so thank you Dr Farth very much for that and we assure you that we'll work on that as well thank you great thanks thanks Ajay yes I'm good to have some clear action items so extremely useful and yes so don't forget two big international events so Vietnam's got a fantastic rice event and then of course the international rice congress in the Philippines this year as well in the week of the 16th of October so two big events great to see these happen and good if everyone can be there because this is where we get find out the latest of what's happening and make the networks that are necessary to to really find the solutions that are important so thanks again everybody have a great day thank you bye bye thank you bye bye thank you thank you everybody thank you thank you